Social Influence Flashcards
(113 cards)
1
Q
What’s conformity?
A
A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of pressure from a person or group of people.
2
Q
What was the process of Asch’s baseline procedure?
A
123 American male participants were tested in a group with other participants. There were three comparison lines and line X, where they had to say what comparison lines with similar to line X.
3
Q
What were the baseline findings of Asch’s baseline study into conformity?
A
On average the genuine participants conformed to the stooges incorrect answers 36.8% of the time.
4
Q
What were the variables investigated by Asch?
A
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
5
Q
What does group size mean for Asch’s variables?
A
Asch increased the group size of the group by adding more confederates
6
Q
What were the results of increasing the group size for Asch’s study?
A
Conformity increased with group size but only to a point, soon levelled off.
Suggests that most people are sensitive to the views of others.
7
Q
What does Unanimity mean for Asch’s variables?
A
The extent to which all members of a group agree.
8
Q
What did Asch do for Unanimity?
A
He introduced a confederate that disagreed with the other confederates.
9
Q
What were the results from Unanimity for Asch’s variables?
A
The participant confirmed less often.
Suggests that the influence of majority depends on a large extent of it being unanimous.
10
Q
What’s task difficulty for Asch’s variables?
A
Harder to work out the correct answer.
11
Q
What were the results of increasing the task difficulty in Asch’s study?
A
Conformity increased as it’s natural to look at others for guidance - called ISI informational social influence.
12
Q
What’s one limitation of Asch’s study?
A
The task and situation were artificial.
Participants knew they were in a research study and may have gone along with what’s expected ( DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS)
13
Q
What’s one strength of Asch’s study?
A
Todd Lucas et al. Supports the effects of task difficulty.
He asked ppts to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems and ppts conformed more when problems were harder. They were given answers from three other students.
14
Q
What’s a weakness of Asch’s study due to the population used?
A
They were all American men.
Women may be more conformist as they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted ( Neto 1995)
15
Q
What are the ethical issues of Asch’s study?
A
The ppts were deceived because they thought the stooges who were involved in the procedure were real ppts.
16
Q
What’s internalisation?
A
A type of conformity where we take on the majority view as we accept it as correct. It’s a permanent change in our behaviour or opinion.
17
Q
What’s identification?
A
We act in the same way as the group because we value and want to be apart of it. Don’t necessarily agree with everything.
18
Q
What’s compliance?
A
We go along with majority view but privately disagree with it.
19
Q
What are the types of conformity?
A
Internalisation
Identification
Compliance
20
Q
Who suggested that there are three types of conformity?
A
Herbert Kelman 1958
21
Q
Who developed the explanations for conformity?
A
Deutsch and Gerard 1955
Developed a two process theory that there are two main reasons.
22
Q
What’s the two types of explanations for conformity?
A
ISI- informational social influence
NSI- normative social influence
23
Q
What’s ISI?
A
We agree with the opinion of majority because we believe it’s correct. We accept it because we want to be correct as well, mag lead to internalisation.
24
Q
What’s NSI?
A
We agree with the opinion of majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked, may lead to compliance.
25
What are social roles?
The parts people play as members of various social groups.
26
Who conducted a study of conformity to social roles?
Zimbardo et al. 1973
27
What was the method of Zimbardo's study?
Selected 21 male student volunteers and were randomly assigned to the role of a prisoner or guard. Encouraged to conform by uniforms and instructions about their behaviour
28
What did the uniforms create?
De-individuation as they had a loss of personal identity.
29
What were the findings of Zimbardo's study?
Guards were enthusiastic, treating prisoners harshly. Within 2 days the prisoners rebelled. Zimbardo has to stop the study on day 6, was meant to last 2 weeks.
30
What are the conclusion about social roles based on Zimbardo's study?
Social roles have a strong influence on how individuals behave.
31
What's a strength of Zimbardo's study?
Emotionally-stable participants were chosen and randomly assigned to prisoners and guards. So no extraneous variables..
32
What's a weakness of Zimbardo's study?
It didn't have the realism of a true prison.
Banuazizi and Movahedi argued that the participants were play-acting rather than conforming to a role. They were stereotyping the guards and prisoner roles.
33
What's the ethical issues of Zimbardo's study?
Prisoners had harm and abuse from the guards. 4 developed rashes, crying and trembling.
34
What did Reicher and Haslam do to challenge Zimbardo's study?
To create an institution like a prison to investigate social roles but in a more ethical way.
35
What were the strengths of Reicher and Haslam's study?
Ppts went through intensive screening, also monitored the whole time.
Can be replicated
Attempted to prevent long-term damage.
36
What were the weaknesses of Reicher and Haslam's study?
Findings cannot be generalised.
Still some ethical concerns.
37
What's obedience?
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order, person is usually a figure of authority who has power.
38
What were the names of the psychologists that challenged Zimbardo's study?
Reicher and Haslam
39
What influenced Stanley Milgram to complete his study?
He wanted an answer to why a high proportion of the German population obeyed Hitler's commands to murder 6 million Jewish people, and many others.
40
When did Milgram design his baseline procedure into obedience?
1963
41
What was the method for Milgram's baseline procedure?
40 American men volunteered to take part in a study at Yale uni, supposedly on memory.
When arrived they were introduced to a confederate who was answering questions that the ppt would give.
Anytime the confederate got it wrong electric shocks would be applied.
42
What did the voltage go up to for Milgram's baseline procedure?
450 colts and increased by 15 volts each time. The shocks were fake though.
43
What role was the confederate playing for Milgram's study?
learner
44
What role was the real participant plating in Milgram's study?
teacher
45
What were the findings of Milgram's baseline procedure?
65% of ppts went to 450 volts.
Many ppts also seemed to sweat, tremble, bite their lip and groan. -> qualitative data
46
What did psychologist think was going to be the results of Milgram's study?
Only 3% of ppts would go to 450 volts.
47
What are the 4 prompts given to the ppts when they wanted to stop the experiment?
'Please continue'
'The experiment requires you to continue'
'It's absolutely essential that you continue'
'You have no other choice, you must go on'
48
What were the ethics issues of Milgram's baseline procedure?
Ppts were deceived as they thought the allocation of teacher and learner was random for example.
They also thought the shocks were real when they weren't.
Teacher was in distress.
49
What was said about external validity for Milgram's baseline procedure?
Lack of external validity as there were no women in the study.
50
What was said about internal validity for Milgram's baseline procedure?
Milgram said that 75% of his ppts believed thst the shocks were genuine.
Howerver, Orne and Holland argued that ppts behaved as they did because they didn't believe in the set up, so were play acting.
NOT WHAT HE INTENDED TO TEST.
51
Who was the person to challenge Milgram's study?
Derren Brown
52
What did Derren Brown say to challenge Milgram's study?
50% of ppts obeyed to the max of 450 volts, compared to 65% for Milgram's
53
What are situational variables in Milgram's study?
Features that may influence an individuals behaviour.
54
What were the situational variables investigated by Milgram?
Proximity
Location
Uniform
55
How did the location change from Milgram's baseline procedure to the situational variables procedure?
Location changed from Yale uni to a run down office.
56
What were obedience levels when the location changed of Milgram's study?
47.5%
57
How did the proximity change from Milgram's baseline procedure to the situational variables procedure?
In baseline procedure teacher couldn't see learner and only hear, but then changed to both learner and teacher in same room.
58
What were obedience levels when the proximity of teacher and learner changed in Milgram's study?
40%
59
How did the uniform change from Milgram's baseline procedure to the situational variables procedure?
The experimenter wearing a lab coat to wearing ordinary clothes.
60
What were obedience levels when the uniform of the experimenter changed in Milgram's study?
20%
61
What are the two main explanations for why individuals obey?
Agentic state
Legitimacy of authority
62
What is the agentic state?
We feel no responsibility for our behaviour as we believe we are acting for an authority figure.
63
How does the agentic state apply to Eichmann, and his impact with the Nazis camps?
He had been charged in 1961 of the Nazis camp deaths and his defense was that he was only obeying orders.
64
What is the opposite of the agentic state?
autonomous state
65
What is the autonomous state?
An individual behaves freely and according to their own principles.
They have a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
66
What's the agentic shift?
A shift from autonomy to agentic and occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure as they are higher in the social hierarchy.
67
What were the binding factors in Milgram's study?
The prompts given by the experimenter to encourage the teacher to carry on.
68
What's legitimacy of authority?
An explanation for obedience where more people are more likely to obey people who we perceive have authority over us.
69
What's a weakness of the agentic state?
agentic state may not explain everyone's behaviour.
70
What's a strength of the agentic state?
Not just restricted to obedience as it's likely in any situation where the individual feels a loss of control.
71
What's a dispositional explanation to explaining obedience?
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of an individual's personality.
72
What's the difference between a situational and dispositional explanation for obedience?
Situational explains the influences that stem from the environment whereas dispositional is caused by internal characteristics that are within an individuals personality.
73
What two explanations for obedience are situational for obedience?
Agentic state
Legitimacy of authority
74
What explanation is a dispositional explanation for obedience?
Authoritarian Personality
75
Apart from Milgram, who else wanted to understand the reasons for why people followed orders during the Holocaust?
Theodor Adorno
76
Who developed the theory of the Authoritarian personality?
Theodor Adorno
77
What is the Authoritarian personality?
A type of personality that was described where individuals are especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. These individuals are also thought to be more submissive to those of high status.
78
What are the two personality traits of someone that has an authoritarian personality?
An extreme respect for authority.
People view society as 'weaker' than it once was so we need the strong and powerful leaders to enforce values.
79
What did Adorno say were the origins of the authoritarian personality?
Forms in childhood, as result of harsh parenting. The child cannot express their experiences as they have a fear of punishment so fears are displaced onto others who they perceive to be weaker.
80
What's the method of Adorno's research?
Studied more than 2,000 middle class, white American's and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. He developed the F-scale to measure authoritarian personality.
81
When did Adorno conduct his study?
1950
82
What is the F-scale created by Adorno?
A scale to measure whether an individual had the authoritarian personality. Ppts had to rate each statement on a 6 point scale ranging from 1 being disagree strongly to 6 agree strongly.
83
What's an example of one of the statements in the F-scale?
Nobody ever learned anything really important except from suffering.
84
What were the findings of Adorno et al. 1950 study?
Those who score highly on the F-scale identified with 'strong' people and were generally contemptuous of the 'weak', and also showed extreme respect to those with a high status.
85
What's a strength of the Authoritarian personality?
Elms and Milgram (1966)
interviewed those who had taken part in Milgram's original study who had been fully obedient. They completed the F-scale scored higher than the comparison group.
86
What's the contradiction to Elms and Milgram's study into the authoritarian personality.
Some of the ppts who obeyed highly explained that they had a good relationship with their parents, rather than having strict ones.
87
What's a limitation of the authoritarian personality?
It cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a countries population.
88
In Milgram's study what was the percentage of people who refused to fully obey to the orders of the experimenter?
35%
89
What does resistance to social influence mean?
The ability to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority.
90
What is social support?
The presence of people who resist the pressures to conform or obey help others to do the same.
91
What is locus of control?
The sense we have about what directs events in our lives.
92
Who proposed locus of control?
Julian Rotter 1966
93
What are the two types of Locus of Control?
Internal
External
94
When an individual has an internal LOC what does that mean?
They believe that their life is determined by their own decisions.
They will actively seek out info which will help them personally and less likely to rely on others, therefore can resist pressure from others.
95
When an individual has an external LOC what does that mean?
They believe that their life is determined by fate, luck and external factors.
Therefore, they are more likely to be influenced by others as they don't believe that they exercise personal control over their life.
96
What's a strength of LOC?
Shute 1975
Suggested that people with a high internal LOC increased resistance to conform.
As they conformed less to expressing po-drug attitudes.
97
What is minority influence?
A form of social influence where a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.
98
What is minority influence most likely going to lead to?
Internalisation
99
What are the three factors that can gradually converts an individuals beliefs, attitudes or behaviour by the minority?
Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility
100
How does consistency of minority view convert an individuals beliefs, attitudes or behaviour?
Minority influence is most effective if the group keeps the same beliefs over time as it draws attention to the minority view
101
How does consistency of minority view convert an individuals beliefs, attitudes or behaviour?
Minority view is more powerful if minority shows dedication to their position, effective as shows that minority isn't acting out of self-interest.
102
How does flexibility of minority view convert an individuals beliefs, attitudes or behaviour?
relentless consistency could be counter productive so most effective if minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility to compromise.
103
Who developed the process of minority influence?
Moscovici
104
What did Moscovici say the process was for minority influence?
1.Draw attention to an issue
2. Make majority think the view of minority
3.Consistency as majority may dismiss viewpoint at first.
4. Argumentation principle
5. Snowball effect- little impact at first but becomes greater over time.
105
What is an example of minority influence?
The Suffragettes
106
What was Moscovici et al. (1969) study into minority influence?
He demonstrated minority influence in a study where a group of 6 people were asked to view blue cards that ranged in intensity. There were 2 confederates in each group who consistently said that the blue cards were green.
107
What were the results of Moscovici et al. (1969) first group into minority influence?
True ppts gave the same wrong answer of green 8.42% of the trial.
108
What were the results of Moscovici et al. (1969) second group into minority influence?
True ppts agreed with green 1.25% of the trial when the minority were inconsistent.
109
What factor does Miscovici's (1969) study support?
consistency
110
What's a weakness of minority influence research?
the tasks involved are often artificial like Asch's line judgement task. Therefore lack external validity as they don't tell us how minority influence works in the real world.
111
When does social change occur?
Occurs when whole societies adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things.
112
What is the main force behind social change?
minority influence
113
What's a strength of minority influence leading to social change resarch?
Martin, Hewstone and Martin 2003
Found that minority influence creates systematic processing and are more resistant to counter persuasion.
So suggests that minority influence has a greater influence than thought.
